Review: I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki

I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Se-hee
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Baek Se-hee's book is an intensely personal exploration of therapy, one of the most transparent books I've ever read. The discussions with her therapist are vulnerable and incomplete, they touch and go on topics, and it's clear that we're getting but a tiny glimpse of a larger person. In principle, this would be a great book because of how open it is. In that, I cannot fault it. It does not feel minced or over-edited with regards to the brutality of the themes, it feels honest.

However, the actual book ends up somewhat underwhelming. Perhaps it is the way it is translated, the cultural differences, or just the short-length not allowing for a deep dive into the therapy, but it just feels too quick, too impatient, too quick to move on from deep and dark ideas. We do not have the context to understand the complaints Se-hee is making to her therapist, so her stories all feel slightly one-dimensional. The vulnerability is not paired with particularly special stories.

In addition, the writing itself is okay but not special. While it does somewhat ground the book, it prevents the book from being poignant or beautiful. It is a reflection of the world, which I cannot fault, but amidst the lack of depth in story or language, it does lose engagement as it goes on

Decent book about therapy, cultural differences, and the future of work.

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Review: My Documents

My Documents by Alejandro Zambra
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I love Zambra. I feel like I've started a review with this before. I love Zambra and the way he uses words. He pulls a magic trick, it feels as if his word are like cards that have been dropped onto the floor, haphazard and careless. Yet, you look closer, and it is clear that he is a deliberate and cautious writer, the planned carelessness, the constructed breeze, everything right where it belongs.

My Documents is an interesting collection of short stories. It is haunting, especially towards the end where the stories introduce some jarring themes (including rape). It is a conflicting set of stories, the characters are complicated, their motivations sometimes obscured just enough to keep them strangers. There are compulsions on display, so human and so terrifying and so bizarre but so real nonetheless.

It lacks the depth of some of his other work, but I love Zambra's language and his ability to write pieces that feel so much a part of this world, inexplicable but familiar.

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Review: I Will Write to Avenge My People: The Nobel Lecture

I Will Write to Avenge My People: The Nobel Lecture by Annie Ernaux
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A short, interesting read, a look into the broader context of Ernaux's work. This is more a preparatory reading I did in the build up to reading more of her work, so not much more to say than that.

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